Los Angeles Task Force Urges Stiff Expulsion Policy

A new report on crime and violence in the Los Angeles schools has
called for sweeping changes in the district's discipline policies,
including a major increase in the use of expulsion for students found
to have committed serious offenses.

Despite the district's existing expulsion policies, the report said,
very few of the students who were caught with dangerous weapons in
school in 1988-89 were forced out of the system for an extended
period.

The report by a panel of parents and local officials accuses the
city school board of virtually ignoring the problem of weapons and
violence on campuses, which, it states, "is rapidly becoming a way of
life for our youth."

"The potential for murder is real" in the public schools, the task
force argued.

The issue of school violence has become a top priority for school
officials in light of the growing level of gang-related violence in the
city, where in 1989 an average of one youth between the ages of 10 and
19 was murdered every day.

Part of the report was presented to the board last month by the
65-member task force, which was formed last March in the wake of the
stabbing of a junior-high-school teacher by a student during class.

The report's controversial conclusions so far have met with a cool
response from board members. David B. Michels, a parent of a
public-school student and a member of the task force, said the
presentation of the report was "cut short" last month "because board
members did not like what they were hearing."

The rest of the report's recommendations are scheduled to be heard
by the board April 16. Task-force members expect "a lively, and at
times, bitter" debate, Mr. Michels said.

In addition to the discipline proposals, the report offers detailed
recommendations on establishing a K-12 "life-survival skills"
curriculum and improving the district's security plan. But the
controversy is focused on the discipline issue.

Los Angeles's debate on youth crime, district officials said,
reflects an increasingly common philosophical conflict throughout the
nation between the more punitive approach of the juvenile-justice
system and the emphasis on rehabilitation advocated by many
educators.

'Straight' Expulsion Advocated

The task force recommended an overhaul of the district's discipline
procedures, including a stricter "straight" expulsion policy for
students caught with a firearm or involved in a serious assault.

Under the current straight-expulsion policy, students may be removed
from the school system for up to a year, with the right of appeal.

The report charges that district officials have in practice been
unwilling to use straight expulsion. Instead, the report indicates,
administrators have tended to move students found guilty of offenses to
other schools, or to place them in the district's several
alternative-school options.

The report cites school-district police figures showing that there
were 438 cases last year in which a student was caught with a weapon in
school and referred for expulsion.

Of those, the report states, only 15 resulted in straight
expulsions. Another 147 students remained in the regular school
program, while the rest were sent to alternative schools.

The infrequent use of outright explusion shows that the school
system "is overly concerned with the welfare of its violent offenders
and has, consequently, placed the safety of other students and staff in
serious jeopardy," the report contends.

Donald Bolton, administrator of the district's
student-attendance-services division, said that district records show
that, of the 438 students recommended for expulsion for weapons
offenses, 22 received straight expulsion.

But Mr. Bolton agreed that district officials have been reluctant to
recommend straight expulsion. "Those students end up on the8streets,
and they are not likely to ever return to school," he said.

Efforts to avoid forcing such troubled students out of school "has
given the district the appearance of being soft on crime," he
conceded.

A National Trend?

Although no organization tracks district discipline policies,
national experts say there is a definite trend across the country
toward stiffer expulsion penalties. Among the most common are
automatic-expulsion policies, which clearly designate certain
offenses--most often, bringing a weapon to school or assault--as
grounds for removal from the schools.

Supporters of that trend, such as Mr. Michels in Los Angeles, argue
that "you've got to send a message to these kids that such behavior
will not be tolerated by our schools."

But evidence shows that, despite such policies, students may still
avoid expulsion.

In Detroit, for example, school-board members last month questioned
a three-year-old expulsion policy for students who bring guns to
school.

Board members criticized enforcement of the policy after discovering
that, of 101 students caught with firearms last year, one-third
remained in a regular school program. Twenty-seven of the students were
transferred to another school, while seven were suspended for up to
five days and then returned to theiroriginal school.

District officials had vowed in April 1987 that such students would
not be readmitted to regular classrooms, after the fatal shooting of a
high-school athlete in school.

Court Protection Sought

In Madison, Wis., meanwhile, school-board members are working on
tightening their existing policy, under which no student has been
expelled in the past 25 years.

The board's efforts follow pressure from the city teachers' union,
which has gone to court to obtain injunctions to protect teachers from
students who had threatened their lives.

John A. Matthews, executive director of the Madison Teachers Inc.,
said local courts granted three injunctions over the past year
prohibiting potentially dangerous students from coming into contact
with certain teachers.

Mr. Matthews argued that the step was necessary because the district
had refused to take action against such students.

"We've been operating under this idea that we are an
upper-middle-class utopian society," he said.

"There has been rapid urbanization here that the district has not
kept up with," he added. "We're seeing a much different kind of student
in Madison."

Shirley W. Baum, assistant superintendent for secondary education,
agreed that the existing expulsion policy was unwieldly and
ineffective. "It was impossible to jump through every hoop," she
said.

Board members last month adopted a new policy against weapons, which
allows for expulsion after only one incident. Previously, the district
had to prove that a student had a history of problems with weapons
before moving to expel him or her.

The board is expected to consider further policy changes this
week.

Out on the Streets

But critics of tougher expulsion policies cite several concerns. A
disproportionate number of minority students are expelled under such
policies, they note, and few districts offer alternative-education
options.

Moreover, even such advocates of tougher policies as Mr. Matthews
voice qualms about "sending such students out on the streets."

"People who support such policies often don't understand that if you
re8move a child from the school, it doesn't mean you've removed him
from the community," added Richard Gray, a spokesman for the
Boston-based National Coalition of Advocates for Students. "He'll still
appear on campus to cause trouble."

Mr. Gray believes that, while schools should not keep dangerous
students in regular programs, they should provide alternatives.

Although Los Angeles has several alternative-school options, they
are inadequate, the task force said.

More Alternatives Urged

The panel's report calls for the creation of new alternative-school
options for students who are in the process of being expelled or
suspended.

Under the plan, 20 separate "opportunity schools" would be set up at
the junior-high and high-school level10lel throughout the district--but
away from regular school sites.

The report also urges establishment of eight "transition centers"
for students who are on parole for weapons offenses, returning from the
juvenile-justice system, or returning from straight expulsion.

Both the opportunity schools and the transition centers would be
staffed with psychologists, counselors, nurses, school police, and
special-education teachers.

The report also calls for the elimination of the district's practice
of allowing students with disciplinary problems to make "opportunity
transfers" to other schools.

The task force found that 11,221 students were given such transfers
in 1988-89. Of those, 2,695 were transferred for "continued and willful
disobedience," and another 1,055 were shifted for having committed an
act of physical violence.

"Such transfers do not address many students' problems," the report
says. "Instead, [they] shuffle the problems and place other students
and staff in the new schools in jeopardy."

Task-force members admitted that many of the report's proposals
would be difficult to implement, given the expected $230 million that
must be cut from the district's $4-billion budget in the coming fiscal
year.

Alfred S. Moore, assistant superintendent for school-support
services and coordinator of the task force, said the district may be
forced to hold off on the task force's more costly proposals for some
time.

"But we're looking seven to 10 years down the road on this," he
said. "This is not something that can be addressed overnight."

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